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1/14/2011

Sweet Vindication

At the beginning of November, I blogged about some amigurumi key chains that my husband and I happened to see in the Macy's holiday shop. If you remember, the little things were poorly made with cheap materials and priced to the tune of $10!

I didn't have much time during the holidays to check back on the inventory of crappy little hand-made amigurumi wanna-be's, but when we went to the mall a few weeks after the holidays, I was confronted with this:

That's them...in... count 'em -- three plastic bins full -- marked down to 75% off ($2.50 each). Most of the other stuff from the G-Shop was G-o-n-e, gone! But these little key chains remained (along with a bunch of plastic bugs that had suction cups on the bottom to make them "hop.")

On one hand, I'm happy to be right. No consumer in her (or his) right mind is going to shell out more for a poorly made, unoriginal amigurumi key chain at a department store when they could have something beautiful, unique, and hand made with love from and number of talented crocheters online and at local craft shows.

On the other hand, I'm a little sad. Macy's getting $10 for a poorly made key chain would mean that I'm not charging near enough for my work. How wonderful would it be to have real evidence that my work is worth more than $1.50 an hour?

For Macy's part, I hope they did something thoughtful with the leftover inventory and pray that I don't see it next time I pop into Dollar General. Perhaps give the key chains away to tweens/teens at a children's hospital or contribute to help keeping our soldiers safe with operation gratitude. We shall see.

Amigurumi 101

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What is amigurumi?

Amigurumi(編み包み) is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures. The word is derived from a combination of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll. Amigurumi are typically cute animals (such as bears, rabbits, cats, dogs, etc.), but can include inanimate objects endowed with anthropomorphic features. Amigurumi can be either knitted or crocheted. In recent years crocheted amigurumi are more popular and more commonly seen.